You’re warned of basic Gotham spoilers through Jerome’s arc from here on out, but where many presumed that that FOX DC drama have tipped too heavily toward the character’s Joker future, Season 2 outing “The Last Laugh” threw a wrench in that theory by killing off the Jerome character and insinuating his legacy as a “Joker Virus” on the city.

Jerome himself has scarcely been referenced since (with no mention of that ominous cackle half the city’s criminals seemed to develop), but series star Ben McKenzie seemed pretty optimistic at Wizard World New Orleans that we’d see “Jerome” again:

Not only can we [bring Jerome back], but we might. I can’t say definitively, but yes. I’ll put it this way: almost nobody that you’ve seen go away is dead. They are all able to come back.

Granted, we left Gotham in 2015 on a deeper descent into the mysterious “Indian Hill” facility that already introduced a young Mr. Freeze (House of Cards star Nathan Darrow), and will soon embrace Bat-mythology even further in B.D. Wong’s Hugo Strange, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to resurrect Jerome somehow. Divisive though he may have been, there’s little argument Cameron Monaghan produced the strongest responses Gotham has seen yet, and the series itself isn’t in a place to ignore success.

Well, how long might it be before “Jerome” starts joking around Gotham once more? Will the series ever feature a full-on Clown Prince of Crime?